


The Trivial Sublime

by saberteeth, witchoil



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Ino/Multiple, Background KakaObi, Background KibaHina, Background NaruSasu, Copious Use of Cigarettes, F/M, Marijuana Use, Masturbation, Medium Burn, Naruto Ensemble Cast, Phone Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Workplace Romance, alcohol use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 17:42:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saberteeth/pseuds/saberteeth, https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchoil/pseuds/witchoil
Summary: Summer, 1994Sakura is home from college for the season doing her best to have a boring time while she works at the local pizza shop. It’s weird to be back in the small town she grew up in, especially after trying so hard to leave it. But it’s not so bad. She has her boys and her best friend Ino and it turns out that some people are way more interesting when you’re not stuck in high school with them. And a lot cuter, too. It’s not like she’stryingto have a fling, but if something good comes along, who is she to say no?





	The Trivial Sublime

**Author's Note:**

> I know we have another fic that people are waiting on an update for but listen that one is depressing and it’s winter and we live in the north and it’s cold and we needed to work on a happy summer fic for our own mental health OKAY? I’m not saying we’re both from small towns and projecting but we’re both from small towns and projecting. This whole thing was 100 fucking percent self-indulgent. This does NOT have a planned update schedule BUT the whole fic is plotted and we hope to finish it soon. But – y’all know how that goes.
> 
> “What if we just wrote like a fun little 90s AU?” we said. Then chapter 1 ended up being 15k and we ended up projecting the whole thing at 40k. It’s fine.
> 
> Also, while worldbuilding this AU, we pretty much came up with backstories for everyone so if you’re curious about any character that isn’t expanded upon here, drop a comment!
> 
> Title from _Flagpole Sitta_ by Harvey Danger

The bell chimes when she walks in the door, a tinny, high-pitched thing that probably never sounded pleasant even when this place first opened. Now, it seems like it’s mocking the sweat that drips down Sakura’s face from the bike ride over here, and is making her look bad on her first day.

There’s movement behind the counter, but no one comes out to greet her. Before this summer, she’d always made extra cash by babysitting the upstairs neighbor’s kids. They’d moved away, and she hadn’t particularly enjoyed babysitting, so here she stands, in a sweat-soaked halter top and a nicer pair of shorts. The kind that came down past her ass – her mom had insisted.

“Hello?” she calls, absently. She’s not sure how this works, but she’s fairly sure that her boss wouldn’t leave her on her own on her first day. Or maybe he would. She really has no idea how this works.

“We’re closed,” comes a voice. “We don’t open till 11. It’s on the sign out front.”

“I know,” gulps Sakura, nervously scratching at the back of her neck. “Uh, I work here?”

Finally, a body comes along with the voice, stepping through the kitchen door to level a stare with her. The face that meets her eyes is deeply scarred on the right side, an eyepatch over his left eye, and a ring through his lip. His hair is messy, like he hasn’t bothered washing it or even brushing it after rolling out of bed, and he wears a pair of oversized Dickie shorts, riding low on his hips and nearly meeting the tips of the white socks that poke out of his Vans. His shirt declares the name for a punk band Sakura doesn’t care much for. NOFX.

She knows who he is despite his being 9 years older than her; she knows everyone in this goddamn town even if he hadn’t been the one to interview her when she had come home during spring break two months ago to ask for a summer job.

“Haruno,” Obito Uchiha says, scratching his chin. “That’s right, I know you. You’re Sasuke’s friend. Thought you left for some big-city university. You work here?”

Well, she certainly hadn’t planned on her first day at a non-self-employed summer job ending before it even began, but it was starting to look that way.

“Uh. Yeah?” She answers, hating the way her voice goes up at the end like it’s a question. “I mean, yeah. That’s what you told me. In March. You said I could start on May 31st.”

He stares at her some more, and it’s unsettling, that one eye. Everyone had heard about it, when he and some boys from his grade had decided to go cliff jumping down at the reservoir one summer and he had gotten trapped beneath some falling rocks. It had nearly been front page news. Sakura’s father had shaken his head and told her that under no circumstances was she to ever go cliff jumping or even swimming in the river, despite the fact that she had only been 8 at the time and not even in the realm of thinking along those lines.

“That’s right,” he finally says, pointing. “You came in with a resume.” He snorts. “I remember now. Told you you don’t need no resume for ringing up pizzas.” He laughs, a guffaw that she hadn’t expected to come out of his mouth when he had originally looked so menacing. But his one brown eye crinkles a bit and he walks back through the kitchen door gesturing for her to follow.

The kitchen is tiny and stifling, and a boy sleeps on the little prep counter, bent over at the waist and face turned away, resting on top of a stack of pizza delivery bags. An expo counter and pizza oven are tucked into the back right corner and Chouji Akimichi stands in front of them, rolling dough while he sings along to a tune on his walkman that Sakura doesn’t recognize.

Sakura’s domain will be the register, right behind the window that opens up to the three tables and waiting area, a humming vending machine to the left of it, condensation pooling at the edges and making a steady _drip drip drip_ on the dirty tile floor.

“So…” she starts, dropping her tote bag under the counter.

“So, register,” Obito points. “Chouji.” He gestures to the pizza oven, and Chouji waves. “Lazy asshole.” He motions to the boy sleeping. “Keys.” He tosses a pair of keys at her, which look like they’re going to hit her square in the face before she reaches up and grabs them at the last second. “One for the front door, one for the register. None for the office, ‘cause you don’t need to be in there.”

“Okay,” Sakura says cautiously, putting the key in the register drawer and turning experimentally. The drawer pops open and she startles, hastily shutting it after that. “And I just. When do I come to work?”

“Oh, that,” he says. “Yeah...schedule goes up on Tuesdays, mostly. For right now you can just work open till 4 each day until I get the next one up. I’ll tape it here, so just call the shop if you’re not in.”

She nods. She can do that, the number for the most popular pizza place in town sits on their fridge along with a dozen other advertisements and coupons, and photos of gatherings of the past.

“You ever used a register before?”

Sakura shakes her head, but figures that he’s not going to kick her out for not knowing.

“Well, it’s easy. Nara can help you.”

Huh. So that’s Shikamaru slumped over there, face squished against the wall with his hair unusually down, the ends curling in the early summer heat. He had been tied with her for valedictorian, which had driven her absolutely insane because she had never seen him study a day in her life. But he did always seem to know the answer when he was called on in class, so she couldn’t spite him for that. Despite him being one of Ino’s family friends, and despite being in band together, she’d barely ever talked to the boy. She’d always thought he was cute, but that was about the total amount of thoughts she’d ever had about Shikamaru Nara.

He mumbles something then, turning his face around, eyes puffy and sleep-droopy, before he straightens up. Yawning, he sticks a ponytail holder in his mouth before he gathers his hair and ties it up, cracking his neck and redoing the left strap of his overalls. Finally, he turns to look at her.

“Haruno?”

“Yes,” she says defensively, turning herself back to the register. Right. How hard can it be? She just needs to memorize prices and go from there, make her $4.25 an hour and save up for an IBM ThinkPad, which would mean she could practice coding outside of class.

“Huh,” he says, nodding to himself. “Well, hit me if you have any deliveries.” And with that, he goes back to sleep, face turned back against the wall.

She wants to say, _can someone give me some direction, here?_ But Obito has disappeared into the office, and assumingly to where the stereo system is kept, because Weezer’s new song about Buddy Holly drones over the speakers.

She looks back at Shikamaru one more time before the clock strikes 11 and they’re officially open for business. He’s still kinda cute. She’ll have to keep that from Ino. This might be an interesting summer after all.

 

* * *

 

Sakura’s first day goes exactly how, in retrospect, she should have expected.

The morning is as dead as Shikamaru, who snores away until nearly noon before waking up and instructing Chouji to make an order of breadsticks to trade with the coffee shop on the other end of the block. And although Sakura wouldn’t have thought Obito would sign off, he doesn’t seem to mind at all. Actually he has a regular order. Apparently.

“Whadda you want, Haruno?” Shikamaru asks her on the way out the door. The sleep still clings to him as much as the fresh dough smell of the shop, eyelids only half-open as he asks her. Goddamn he’s not just cute, he’s hot. But at the same time, maybe it’s just because she’d thought that in high school. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a little summer fling but, seriously, a crush on her first day? Not cute. Juvenile, even.

Shikamaru coughs and Sakura realizes it’s been a little long since he asked his question.

“Um, just a black coffee is fine.”

“Not a cappuccino or anything? They have an espresso machine now.”

Sakura wrinkles her nose. Not that she doesn’t like them, but she hasn’t had any caffeine today. What’s wrong with a black coffee? “No, coffee’s good.”

He shrugs and kicks the door open, the box of breadsticks balanced carefully on one long hand.

The four of them sip their way through a few easy lunch orders and Sakura is grateful that they’re not that much of a sit-down shop while she figures out how to ring things in. Obito is...hands-off is an understatement. He spends more time out back taking smoke breaks and working on crosswords than he does with his feet on the shop floor. Partially because half the time he _is_ in the shop, he’s got his feet up in the manager’s office. It would have been nice to have him there correcting Sakura’s mistakes if for no other reason than it’s embarrassing to have to go to him with questions.

Instead she tries to muddle her way through each order slowly, keying things in according to what she can read of the faded instructions taped to the counter next to the register. It’s when she’s been at the first order for almost five minutes that Shikamaru comes up. He doesn’t say anything, just reaches out over Sakura’s shoulder and punches keys rapidly until the till chimes and spits out a dot-matrix receipt. Sakura raises her hand to take it, but Shikamaru beats her to it with the practiced grace of someone who’s probably worked summers here before.

“Pep and pep, Cho!” He shouts across the shop, loping over to the expo window.

“What size?”

“Shit, we sell sizes now?”

“Idiot, gimme that ticket.”

“It’s a medium.”

“Time?”

“Haruno, what was the time on the call?”

“Sakura.”

Shikamaru has his hand up on the top of the expo window and turns to look over his shoulder at her. “Huh? I didn’t hear that.”

“You can call me by my first name. If you don’t mind.”

“Sure, whatever. What time did they want it? And pickup or delivery?”

“Oh,” Sakura says, mentally shuffling through the call even though she already knows it won’t do her any good. “Shit. Um, I forgot to ask.”

“Hm.” Shikamaru slaps his hand against the wall. “Make it ASAP and just put it under the heater. Pickup it is.”

“Aye aye,” Chouji answers from the kitchen.

The two sit back there exchanging repartee as Chouji works and berates Shikamaru for not having any work to do. Sakura stands stock-still at the register and tries not to feel too stupid. There’s plenty she can do very well, but that’s no match for the strange, invisible rules of a pizza shop. Apparently.

Eventually Shikamaru comes back over to lean on a prep counter. Sakura tries not to be too stiff as she turns around to face him. “Sorry about that.”

“Hm? About what?”

“Forgetting, on the phone.”

Again Shikamaru shrugs. He reaches a hand out for his half-empty coffee cup without looking and sips out of the open top. “No skin off my nose.”

“I know, I just. You know.”

He stares at her blankly in response, like he expects her to go on.

“Nevermind.”

“If it’s Tobi you’re worried about–”

“Tobi?”

“Obito. It’s a nickname me and Cho gave him. Anyways if it’s him you’re worried about, I wouldn’t. He couldn’t care less as long as the place doesn’t burn down.”

Sakura tries not to take it too personally, but it’s another reminder of the fact that she’s kind of a fish out of water, back here. The only person she’s really maintained a relationship with in her hometown is Ino. And even then, she knows Ino is still close with both Shikamaru and Chouji. She has the boys, of course, but they’ve always felt like their own little unit, apart from everyone else. Naruto was a foster kid, and Sasuke’s family has always held a strange place above the rest of town with their businesses and wealth, not to mention the very public dysfunction. And then, of course, her parents were late transplants. It’s not like people stared or anything, but there was always a sense that she lived here but wasn’t _from_ here. Not that anyone was mean, either, but with a town as small as this there’s always context.  

The last few orders of her shift aren’t too hard and she doesn’t fuck anything up too bad, aside from getting onions on a whole pie instead of a half and having to ring a credit card in twice – a slip-up she really hopes she doesn’t have to figure out tomorrow.

But all-in-all, it’s okay. Her feet are sore as fuck by the time it’s over but Chouji gives her a friendly thumbs-up as she heads out the door and Shikamaru makes sure to say goodbye and tell her that he’ll be there the next day. He doesn’t _say_ he’ll be there to help, but she takes the implied assurance for what it is. _No worries, don’t take it too seriously_ . And it’s true, Sakura thinks as she hangs up her apron and pulls her hair down from its ponytail, this place is obviously anything but serious. And after college and independence and her new, shocking awareness of how much _shit_ adult life requires of her, that sounds just about perfect.

The air is cool as Sakura pedals home, feet and back a little achy, but no worse than after one of her campus workouts. Maybe this won’t suck too bad, it could even be kinda boring. She can do boring just fine.

 

* * *

 

Sakura’s first night shift drags; it’s a Tuesday and there haven’t been any customers in the last three hours. The minute hand on the clock above the counter ticks by as slow as the sweat rolling down to pool in the small of Sakura’s back, the summer heat already oppressive despite it only being early June.

“Careful, Haruno, you keep your face like that for too long and it’ll get stuck like that,” Anko, the other manager, says, sticking her tongue out. “Come on. Just fifteen minutes left and then you can go get drunk.”

Sakura smiles, finally standing up from where she had been leaned over doodling on a piece of receipt paper.

“I’ll probably just go home and sleep, to be honest. Being nineteen is the worst. There’s nothing to do around here.”

Shikamaru opens a sleepy eye from where he’s been slumped over on the prep counter, which Sakura is quickly learning is his favorite spot in the place. He whines whenever a delivery gets called in before sauntering out to his pickup truck with a roll of his eyes, but he’s also the fastest driver they have.

“No one told you? Obito’s roommate owns a bar. We all go out there after.”

Sakura’s eyebrows life. “His roommate? Isn’t he like thirty? He doesn’t live by himself?”

Shikamaru just grins. “Yeah.”

Sakura nods to herself in understanding. Well, nothing wrong with that. And it’ll get her into a bar.

“Who’s all going?”

“I’m not, tonight,” Anko sighs, pulling a cigarette out of her back pocket and sticking it behind her ear before handing one to Sakura. They’ve only worked two shifts together and she’s already gotten a hold of Sakura’s notorious bumming habit. She likes her. At least she hangs out on the floor with them, unlike Obito who rarely leaves the office. “Gotta be in early tomorrow for inventory. Fucking Uchiha got out of it this time.”

“That’s rough,” winces Shikamaru. “Ino and Chouji are meeting us there, Obito is probably hanging out there too; it’s pretty much then only other place he goes in town when he’s not here. Shino, you in?” he calls to the other cook. Shino looks up, shakes his head, and goes back to closing down the prep counter. He doesn’t speak much, but he’s very polite, unlike Shikamaru, who takes the chance to tease her every five minutes.

And really, that isn’t helping her quickly developing crush on him.

“I’ll go,” she says, glancing up at the clock, where the minute hand is stubbornly hovering at 5 till. She opens the drawer and begins counting the cash, her upper back hot where she can feel Shikamaru’s gaze.

The heat of the ovens has got his baby hairs curling, and he’s taken to smoothing them back with a headband along with this spiky ponytail. It’s so _cute_ it should be illegal, and he always puts a hand on her waist whenever he hovers behind her to help her at the register. It’s an issue. She should probably ask Obito for shifts when Tenten is working, instead.

“All right, Haruno!” he cheers. “Knew we could make a party girl out of you after all.”

“I drink,” she says defensively, still counting the cash, refusing to turn around. She can feel the blush in her cheeks and she certainly doesn’t need Shikamaru to see that, or worse, Anko. Then she’d never live it down.

“Sure,” he says easily. “You hole up with Naruto and Sasuke or you have girl’s night at Ino’s. But you never came out to parties in high school!”

 _That’s because I didn’t get invited,_ she doesn’t say. Instead, she rolls her eyes where he can’t see them and says, “I had better things to do.”

“Sure you did,” he says. “You need a ride over to the bar?”

“You’re going to drink and drive!?” she asks indignantly. “No, I’ll bike, and then just walk home.”

“Calm down,” he snorts. “I’m going to leave it at the bar and crash at Obito and Kakashi’s place. So, you need a ride?”

“If I can pick the music,” she says, finally turning around, smirking.

“Ugh, no Mariah Carey.”

“That’s sexist!” she cries. “No. I have some No Doubt on a tape in my bag.”

“How obscure, Haruno.” She doesn’t mention that she’s impressed that he knows who they are.

“I thought I told you to call me Sakura.”

“I thought I told you how to close this place down right,” he says, nabbing the keys out of her back pocket to lock the cash drawer. “Now we can get out of here.”

“About time.”

“You’re not allowed to say that!” Anko sticks her head out from the office, purple hair glistening under the shitty fluorescents. “It’s literally your fourth day!”

“And see? She already knows what a shit hole it is. Come on, _Sakura,”_ Shikamaru says, rolling his eyes but slinging an affectionate arm around her neck.

She very carefully does not consider the way it makes the back of her neck feels, and fixes her eyes on the ground so she doesn’t accidentally kiss him, or something.

She feels ridiculous, but he’s _cute_ and smart and there’s something unfairly attractive in all that apathy.

She’ll have to be careful tonight. If Ino figures out she has a crush, she’s screwed.

“So you can just call the place a shit hole and they won’t fire you?” she asks to break the silence.

He waves a hand. “I’ve been working summers at that place since I was 14. Bussing, then delivering. I have more blackmail on Obito and Anko than I could possibly know what to do with, and now I’m their best driver. They know it’s a shit hole. They ain’t gonna fire me.”

She smiles, and tries not to think of the nature of that blackmail.

“‘Sides, this summer might be a little less shitty with you around.”

“You think?”

“Maybe,” he opens the door to his pickup, and gestures for her to get in before sliding into the driver’s seat and holding out his hand for her tape. She digs it out of her Walkman and shoves it in, nodding her head as David Byrne’s voice comes on.

“Thought we were listening to No Doubt?”

“Guess I forgot which tape I had in my bag?” She ignores the way her cheeks go red. “The Talking Heads are good, though!” She gets ready for one of his teasing remarks, ready to defend her music taste.

“They are,” he nods, and turns it up. Oh. Well.

She nods along to the music, and the pass the rest of the ride in comfortable silence.

 

* * *

 

 

Obito’s roommate turns out to be Kakashi Hatake, who Sakura knows because he used to sometimes babysit her as a kid before he graduated early and went off to college far away from here. She’s vaguely surprised that he came crawling back to this little map dot, but she supposes there’s a certain charm. Or certain people.

“Shika!” yells Chouji when they walk in, raising his arms.

“Finally,” Ino rolls her eyes, getting up to give Sakura a hug. “He’s not forcing you to do extra work, right?”

“No, Sakura is just slow.”

 _“I’m new!”_ she huffs indignantly. “Fuck off.”

“Sure will,” smirks Shikamaru, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and sticking it in his mouth before lighting it and sauntering up to the bar. He raps on it twice before calling, “Hey, hey, Kakashi!”

“Hey,” Kakashi says, appearing in front of them and raising a brow. “Hasn’t anyone told you that 19 year olds can’t drink?”

“Sure have.” Shikamaru smirks again and gestures Sakura over. “Whatcha drinkin’, Haruno?”

“Hey, I thought I told you 19 year olds can’t drink! No bringing random kids into my bar.”

“She’s one of us now, ‘Kashi,” says Obito, sliding up next to them. “Give her a beer and fuck off back to work.”

Kakashi raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure you want to talk to me that way?” He asks. “I know where you sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Obito laughs. “Give the girl a beer already!”

Sakura laughs hesitantly, but assumes from the lack of fanfare that this is normal banter between the two of them. Shikamaru has gone to join Ino and Chouji at their high-top table and Sakura heads over after Kakashi presses a beer into her hand with a glower at Obito.

It’s shit, pure piss in a glass, but it’s alcohol and from what she’s gathered Kakashi probably won’t charge her.

Smoke permeates the air and the A/C must be broken if the open windows and humidity pooling on the tables in little droplets is anything to go by, but Sakura can’t find it in herself to complain. She certainly hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected to make friends with the people at her job and hadn’t expected to start June feeling like it might actually be a fine summer. And, she thinks, looking over at Shikamaru steal a fry from Chouji and take a drag from his cigarette, she certainly hadn’t expected to develop a dumb work crush.

Freshman year at college had been full of experimenting, with guys (fun but annoying) and girls (enjoyable, but something she could never tell her parents) and alcohol and a few drugs. She figured when she had to go back to her little corner of bumfuck nowhere that she’d have to put all that on hold and spend summers the same way she always had; girls nights at Ino’s and shooting the shit in Naruto’s backyard with Sasuke. Despite being on alright terms with everyone else in the pit orchestra back in high school, those three were really the only people she had hung out with. And she didn’t expect things to change just because they had all spent two semesters at college now. But here she was, out with her coworkers at one of the bars in town. She laughs to herself and takes another sip.

Obito drags his barstool over to their little table and slings an arm over her shoulder, jerking her out of her reverie.

“To the newest member of the workforce!” He says, raising his beer. “Drink up, because capitalism is shit and it only gets worse from here.”

Ino giggles. “Hear, hear!”

Sakura giggles too, can’t help it.

“You don’t even work there, Ino, don’t act like taking inventory in your mom’s shop remotely compares to working under Tobi’s harsh conditions!” He looks over his shoulder, but Obito has gone to bother Kakashi again. Shikamaru blows a puff of smoke in her face and she coughs, waving it out of the way.

“Ugh, disgusting,” says Ino, jerking it out from between his lips and sticking it in her own mouth. “Have some common courtesy.” She blows it back in his face.

“Troublesome,” Shikamaru sighs. “Everyone’s a critic.”

“Keeps you on your toes,” says Ino, passing the cigarette to Sakura. She watches them banter, Chouji joining in as well, and tries not to be jealous of the easy way they shoot barbs back and forth.

The bar lights are low and frame the sharp lines of his face nicely and Sakura can’t help but think of how she’d feel if she met him at a party back at school. She’d always assumed he was a dick because of how aloof he was in high school, and couldn’t understand why Ino had stayed friends with him for so long, just because their parents were friends. But now she sees, he’s just a lazy bastard, and he’s funny. Decent taste in music, too.

She doesn’t know him deep enough to have feelings, or anything, but her pussy feels differently, and she almost wishes they didn’t know each other so she could take him home.

“Sakura, what do you think?” Chouji asks, as Obito plops another round down in front of them.

“Huh?”

“Jeez, Forehead, back to planet Earth,” Ino snaps, but it’s affectionate. “What did you think about the latest X-Files episode?”

“Oh!” she says. “Oh, shit, I haven’t even watched it.”

“Too busy diligently working, I’m sure,” says Shikamaru. “You should watch out for Sakura. She’s a demon with that register.”

“Best hire ever,” says Obito solemnly.

“Orders come in like hot cakes,” agrees Chouji.

“Hey!” she says, ready to get defensive, but she looks up, and notices Shikamaru’s smile, the twinkle in Chouji’s eyes, and calms down. They’re _teasing_ but they aren’t making fun of her. They’re just...including her, like they’re all good friends already. It’s kind of...really fucking awesome. “Hey, not everyone can be so inherently talented with a register. It’s a skill.”

“Fast fingers,” nods Shikamaru, and she nearly chokes on her beer.

“Uh, yeah,” she agrees, pointedly looking away when she notices Ino giving her an odd look. _Great. Fuck._ Ino has always been too fucking perceptive for her own good.

“Sakura, I gotta piss,” she says, hopping off her stool and motioning to the bathroom. “Bathroom?”

Sakura reluctantly follows, bracing herself for the work. _Relax,_ she tells herself. _So you think Shikamaru’s hot! That’s nothing new, it’s just that you have to spend 5 days a week with him in close proximity, and he teases you and has really long fingers but –_

“Are you _crushing_ on Shikamaru?” Ino asks, rounding herself on Sakura the minute she’s shoved them into the shitty one-person bathroom and locked the door. The entire thing is about 2 feet by 2 feet and Ino’s face is way too close for comfort, the smell of Bud Light faintly nauseating.

“No!” says Sakura defensively. Ino arches an eyebrow, her glittery eyeshadow making her look more menacing than it has any right to. “Well, maybe!”

“Maybe!?”

“No!”

“You just said maybe!”

“Well, maybe!”

“Do you wanna fuck him? Because he’s like my brother, you know!”

“Ino,” Sakura rolls her eyes. She loves her friend, but _god_ does she have a penchant for the dramatic. “You’ve literally had sex with his ex-girlfriend.”

“Okay, Temari’s hot. What’s your point?”

“I just feel like you shouldn’t be judging who I want to fuck. That is – _if_ I even want to fuck Shikamaru.”

“Which you do.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, I’ve seen his dick, and it’s not half bad. You have my permission, just don’t hurt him, and he better not hurt you. I love you both too much.”

Sakura closes her eyes and inhales. “You’ve seen his dick?”

Ino waves her hand. “Remember in ninth grade when I wouldn’t tell you who I got to second base with under the bleachers? It was gross, we swore to never speak about it again so _fuck you_ for making me speak about it now.”

“I didn’t –” she throws her hands up, but stops when she realizes that she’s still in a very dirty bathroom stall and there’s free beer waiting for her on the other side of the door. “Look, I’ve only been working with him a week, and I shouldn’t shit where I eat. He’s just cute, I don’t know.”

“You are such a sucker,” smirks Ino. “Come on Sakura, you played it safe all throughout high school, why don’t you have a summer fling?”

“We’ll see,” she sighs. She meant what she said. He _is_ cute, and she _doesn’t_ know. Ino is making her feel self-conscious and the whole damn thing is a bigger deal than it needs to be. “Can I go drink now?”

“I suppose,” Ino rolls her eyes, maneuvering around Sakura and sweeping the door over. “Lead the way.”

She saunters back over and gets back in her seat, Obito pressing yet anything beer into her hand. “I’ll never understand what women do in bathrooms together. Make out?”

“Gross,” says Chouji, but he looks mildly appreciative.

“You’re all immature,” says Shikamaru. “Haruno is the only one who’s on my level of humor. Right?”

“Uh, right,” she says, but isn’t sure where that even came from. He smiles at her and she feels her cheeks flush and thanks higher powers for bar lighting, pointedly not looking at Ino’s wide-eyed stare boring into her side.

Okay, so maybe she’s fucked. Whatever. It’s not like she’s going to go home and masturbate thinking about him.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the night at the bar passes in a blur. She doesn’t get drunk, just tipsy on Obito’s steady parade of beers that he keeps handing her, chain smoking Shikamaru’s cigarettes and letting Ino’s non-stop chattering wash over her. Several times Chouji looks at her as Ino berates Shikamaru for something or other and raises her eyebrows with a _so annoying, right?_ look on his face, but it’s fond.

She almost resents Ino for keeping Shika and Chouji from her in high school, but she knows why she did it; they were family friends that were practically brothers and Sakura was Ino’s friend, but even though they were in band and pit orchestra together, they just ran in different circles. Namely, Ino and her crew went to parties, Sakura and the boys did not.

They close down the bar and then some; Sakura supposes that’s the benefit of knowing the owner. Er – _knowing_ may be too light of a word, but Sakura doesn’t plan to stick around and think about what her boss gets up to with his roommate.

Shikamaru had gone upstairs, presumably to Kakashi’s apartment to crash and Chouji had offered to walk her home, and Ino had butt in to say she was coming too. Sakura had spent the entire walk home and anxious as fuck that Ino was going to say something about Shikamaru, but it turned out she _could_ keep her mouth shut when it was good for her.

Possibly, she also knew that one of Sakura’s secret hobbies was watching her mom’s kickboxing tapes and she didn’t want to find out how Sakura’s fists could connect with her face. Either way, Sakura is grateful that Ino stays surprisingly quiet and she does her best to listen to Chouji’s cheerful tone as he talks about the latest fishing spot he and Shika have scoped out.

Sakura gets in the door with a quick goodbye to the two of them and falls face-down into her bed, lazily peeling her shirt and shorts off and laying in bed in just her panties, letting the humidity wash over her. After a few moments of letting sweat pool on her chest, she heaves a sigh and gets up to pull the cord on her fan, and maybe it’s that godawful switch from pleasantly tipsy to inconveniently headached-sobriety or maybe it’s the stifling moisture in the air, but her pussy twinges and she _knows_ it’s not because she’s broken the seal and has to piss.

 _Fuck,_ she thinks, falling back onto her bed with a muffled _flump_ and lets her fingers drift down to where they want to go, scratching at her pubes a bit before deciding _fuck it_ and pushing her panties down before using her foot to hook around them and get them all the way off.

There, that feels slightly less suffocating. And now she can paw at her pussy a bit, trying her hardest to think about her normal go-to celebrity crushes that she normally fixates on while getting off; Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder and Lisa Bonet.

But try as she might, her coworker’s face looms into her mind, his hair when it falls out of his ponytail, his arms when he lifts a stack of pizzas to take out to his car. _It’s unfair,_ she bemoans, rubbing at her clit and feeling that spark of heat run through her, making her scrunch up her knees and press her legs together. The worst part of doing this in the summer is the way no position in her bed feels comfortable; the tiny, twin-sized thing is technically bigger than her dorm bunk at college but it feels small and constricted as she arches her back and tries not to think about Shikamaru straddling over her and fails miserably.

She rubs in earnest now, parting her legs to stick two fingers inside herself, wet and pulsing.

 _You like that, Haruno?_ Shikamaru asks, and she nods, breathy.

 _Get inside me, asshole,_ she says, because she can’t picture sex with Shikamaru to be any sort of loving, intimate thing, it’d be a good hard fucking, but there’s no doubt in her mind that he knows what he’s doing.

 _Sheesh, impatient,_ he smirks, and she _moans,_ getting a third finger inside herself and sawing in and out and in and out.

Her hair is matted to her forehead with sweat as she pulls her fingers back out, taking advantage of their coated state to rub around her clit with wet fingers, hitting that one spot _just_ right.

 _Fuck,_ Sakura says. _Fuck, come on, make me finish._

Shikamaru doesn’t say anything back, but he _does,_ he does, and she comes with a cry, feeling the orgasm course through her, starting from her feet and rising through her whole body, the inside of her cunt twitching and desperate for something to be inside of it. She keeps rubbing, waiting for the second wave of the orgasm to hit her, that sweet, beautiful tingle through her whole pussy and _god_ it feels good.

It’s been a while since she’s done that, hasn’t felt brave enough since she got home from college that summer to do it in the same house that she’d grown up with despite more than a few experimentations in high school.

She falls back on her pillow again, not even pulling her panties back up, letting them stay down at the foot of the bed buried under the covers, and puts her hands over her face in shame.

 _Maybe,_ she’d said to Ino. She’s a fucking idiot.

She thanks god for small miracles as she turns to her nightstand and sees her landline sitting there, sending a huge surge of gratitude to her 15 year-old self that had _begged_ her parents for her own phone line nightly until they had finally relented on her 16th birthday.

She pulls the phone over to her bed, wraps the cord around her wrist in anxiousness, and dials Ino’s number, hoping to god she’s still awake at – she checks the clock – 3:30 in the morning.

“Man, you are lucky Chouji decided to crash and we’re currently having a Fresh Prince marathon or otherwise I wouldn’t hesitate to clock you,” Ino answers the phone cheerfully. “What’s up, slut?”

“Ino,” Sakura moans, running a hand down her face. She doesn’t have to say anything else, Ino bursts out cackling.

“You fucking _slut!”_ She laughs, loudly and tinny down the phone, as if she really is right in Sakura’s ear. “You fucking got off thinking about him! I _knew_ you had a crush!”

“No!” She protests. “I didn’t! I just –”

“You fucking _liar!_ Don’t lie to me Sakura, or I’ll have to wake Chouji up and tell him _exactly_ –”

“Okay, I did.” She admits. “I totally did. _Fuck_ me. How am I supposed to live with this all summer?”

“Welllll…” Ino starts, and Sakura can just picture her twirling her hair around her finger. “You _could_ go after him.”

Sakura sighs. Ino never gets it.

“Okay, Ino, but this is Shikamaru. Has he even dated anybody since Temari? He’s not that kind of guy.”

Ino sighs right back, a long suffering thing like Sakura is being the most dense person on the planet.

 _“Okay,_ Sakura, the man likes his peace and quiet, but this is you. Like, you’re hot. You’re interesting. You’re smart. Why wouldn’t he date you?”

That’s...really nice actually. Sakura considers.

“Well, it’s just summer vacation. Look, you’re taking this too seriously. It’s just a little crush, that’s all. I’m not gonna act any differently toward him.”

“Fine, but you’re really missing out on getting some. I mean, what else are you gonna do, huh? Hang out with the boys and smoke pot? That’s _boring._ I, for one, will be getting some. I don’t want my best friend to be missing out.”

“Oh, you’re getting some? With _who?”_

“I’m sure Temari wouldn’t mind some more of this. Or maybe Sai. He’s weird, but I’ve always liked him,” she says, thoughtful.

“Ugh. I’m not making this into a competition. I’m just gonna go to work, and do my job, and we’ll just...see. We’ll just see, okay?”

“Sigh, you’re so boring. It’s 4am, I have to sleep.”

“And you’re so annoying!”

“But you love me.”

“I guess.”

“You do, Sakura! Goodnight, have sweet dreams about Shikamaru!”

“I’m not going to –” but the line goes dead. Sakura hangs up the phone and falls back into her bed, where her mind immediately starts drifting to... _no._

Like she said, she’s just going to go to work, and get through the summer. Just a little crush. Nothing to worry about.

 

* * *

 

Sakura has work the next night – thankfully not the morning shift, her slight hangover is a bitch – and wants to laugh at herself for thinking she had nothing to worry about.

She doesn’t remember what she dreamed about, but that doesn’t stop her from immediately remembering what she had done right before drifting off the second that she wakes up. Her thoughts are on Shikamaru all morning long, as well as on the act of trying (and failing) to act like everything is normal as she breezes past her mother in the morning to make herself a cup of instant coffee and pour herself a bowl of cereal.

“We didn’t hear you get in last night, honey,” Mebuki says, and Sakura has never been more thankful that their rooms were a floor apart.

“Uh, yeah. Work ran late, you know? Might again tonight, I might go out with the boys, so.”

“Okay honey, just try and call if you’re going to be spending the night. I’m sure Itachi has a house phone you can use, or Naruto’s foster father does, so no excuses.”

“Right, you got it. Uh, you know, I was going to go hang out with Ino before work so. I’ll just shower and head out.”

She then speeds out of the house at the speed of light, practically still pulling her shirt over her half-wet body as she hops on her bike and pedals away.

She actually _did_ stopped by Yamanaka Flowers, thinking that maybe she could explain herself better in person, but Ino had been busy with an influx of customers. As she pedals by both Naruto’s hardware store and Sasuke’s apartment complex, she briefly contemplates bothering either of them, but still feels a little bit over-sensitive all over and is convinced that they’d both be able to tell that she had beat it thinking about Shikamaru last night somehow. So Sakura ends up hanging out at Taco Bell with her notebook and a pen that she always had in her bag, writing aimlessly until the clock finally strikes 4:45 and she can bike over to the shop.

“What’s up, Haruno?” says a voice when she enters the shop and thank god, _thank god,_ it’s Obito.

“What’re you doing out of the office?”

“I _do_ work, you know,” says Obito, and he vaguely holds up a wrench, like that explains things. She raises her eyebrows back at him, and heads through the swinging kitchen door to her domain behind the register, throwing her bag down with more force than necessary.

The first 30 or so minutes of the shift are uneventful; it’s Shino cooking so she doesn’t even have Chouji’s cheerful chatter or off-key singing to keep her occupied. Maybe she will get through this shift, and then she can go back to how things were before she fucking _came_ thinking of her coworker. God, she is such an idiot.

Of course, because the luck gods so often smile upon her, the back door opens at that point, and it’s Shikamaru, looking effortlessly good in a tank top and black denim vest and a pair of cutoffs. _Fuck_ her.

“Hey,” she says, trying to school her face into normalcy. Does she always greet him when he comes in? She thinks so? She doesn’t know.

“Hey,” Shikamaru says back, raising an eyebrow in greeting, and slumping over the prep counter, absentmindedly pulling pizza boxes down and beginning to methodically fold them.

It’s silent or so, just the sounds of Shikamaru folding the boxes and Shino slicing vegetables and herself doodling on some receipt paper.

Obito’s music plays over the speakers, but it feels eerily quiet. For some reason, she can’t remember if they normally spend their shifts talking or not.

“Uh. Has anyone listened to Weezer’s new album?” she asks, trying to break the silence.

Shikamaru cracks an eye open from where he’s lounging on top of stack of neatly folded boxes.

“Uh, yes? Obito plays it nearly every fucking day. You feeling alright, Haruno?”

“Yes!” she says, way too soon and with way too much enthusiasm. “Yes, yeah, I’m fine.”

He levels her with a stare.

“You hungover?”

“No.”

Damn. Damn damn damn. All she can think about when she looks at him is what it’d be like to be pressed up against him, to hear his smooth voice curl in her ear, to have his hands tangled in her hair.

It feels like she can’t remember how to act around him suddenly. Was she always this quiet? Or did conversation normally come easier?

“Well, if you need a pick-me-up, let me know...I have a few cans of Jolt in my truck.”

“That’s fine, but thank you,” she says, oddly flattered by his offer. She tries to tell herself that it’s nothing special, but it feels like it is. Of course, she’s never seen how he acts with the other register girl, Karin, but she can imagine they probably get along...they’re both likeable assholes.

So she’s probably not special. But still.

By sheer force of willpower, she distracts herself out of anxiety by busying herself with the crossword puzzle in the day’s newspaper.

She pointedly doesn’t look up unless a customer comes in, but she can’t help but notice the way Shikamaru’s eyes linger on her throughout the shift.

The rest of the week, things feel relatively back to normal, but her stomach still flutters when she looks at him, and he still watches her with a critical eye, and engages her in conversation when he doesn’t need to. She doesn’t masturbate thinking about him again that week, but she definitely thinks about it every night as she drifts off to sleep each night.

 

* * *

 

The next week, Shikamaru’s truck is in the shop – _A hazard of having good taste_ , he’d said. _And no fucking money!_ Chouji had yelled back. They’re lucky Anko and Obito both have cars he can use to make deliveries but unlucky because it means he complains all the goddamned time about it.

Mostly it’s about the bus he has to take to get in. Sakura keeps her mouth shut about her opinion on the matter, just rides in like she normally does, passing him as he waits and looks bored at his stop, and locks her bike up outside. She would wave, but he’s never seemed to notice her. Instead he always has his nose buried in a book or naps with his back against the plastic shelter wall.

She knows he’s okay with being alone but there’s something about it – maybe the way he’s always the only one there – that seems lonely. She entertains fantasies of bringing him something, of at least trying to shout hello as she rides past, but it takes her until Thursday to do anything.

After he complimented her Talking Heads tape, Sakura toyed with the idea of making him a copy. On Wednesday night, when there’s nothing on but reruns and she’s not ready to finish _The Violent Bear It Away_ , she sits down with her boombox and her dad’s handheld recorder and gets to work. She gets halfway through the first track when a wave of insanity overtakes her and she briefly considers making a mixtape instead of a copy, but thankfully it passes and Sakura is left with little more than a slight embarrassed blush. She...has a crush, yes, but she’s not crazy. And Shikamaru hardly seems like the type to react well to a mixtape.

Sakura finishes the copy with minimal disturbance (if there’s the soft bump of a cat’s tail hitting the boombox at the beginning of Moon Rocks, she’ll never say) and places the copied tape in its little clear case with the title scribbled on in sharpie. Then in her backpack it goes.

The next morning is colder than usual and foggy. Maybe it’s because she’s still tired and not thinking straight, but Sakura stops at the convenience store on the way out of her neighborhood. Shikamaru’s always so tired in the mornings and, well, she can ride one-handed for a few blocks.

Sakura tries not to look nervous or spill any coffee on herself as she pumps her handbrakes coming up on the bus stop, pulling up and putting a foot on the curb right in front of her dozing co-worker.

“Hey,” she says, hoping he’s not actually asleep. The only thing more embarrassing than trying to be nice would be having to yell at him in order to do so. “Shikamaru.”

“Hm?” He blinks and looks up. “Pinkie?”

_Pinkie?_

“Uh, yeah. It’s me.”

“Obviously? What is it?”

“I brought you coffee.” Sakura extends her offering of caffeine out over the sidewalk.

Shikamaru looks puzzled, like he’s not sure if he’s still asleep. “Why?”

It catches her off guard. She had expected a _Thank you_ or a _You shouldn’t have_. “It’s chilly. I thought you might want some. And I still owe you for getting me coffee on my first day.”

He seems to ignore her question. “How do you know my bus stop?”

“I ride by here every day. It’s hard to miss you catching flies on the bench.”

“I hadn’t–”

“You hadn’t noticed, I know. Here,” she says, “take it.”

Shikamaru takes the styrofoam cup from Sakura’s hand. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome.” Sakura suppresses a smile but can feel the corners of her mouth turn up.

Shikamaru raises an eyebrow. His mouth stays in its characteristic line. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Sakura’s heart beats loudly in her chest and she tries to ignore the way her fingers tremble as she pulls her backpack around on one shoulder. “Yeah, um, this is also for you. If you want it.” She takes the cassette and holds it out as she did with the coffee. Shikamaru just stares at it. “It’s _Speaking in Tongues_. I made a copy. In case you didn’t have one.”

One corner of Shikamaru’s mouth goes up, not in a smile but a skeptical kind of sneer. “Seriously?”

“‘Seriously?’ Yeah, seriously.”

Shikamaru makes a sound with his mouth – _tch_ – and puts the hand not holding the coffee in his pocket. “Typical.”

“What?”

“You’re not gonna win me over with a mixtape, Haruno. Even if you did manage to avoid putting any Mariah Carey on it.”

“It’s– it’s not a mixtape. I told you. It’s just a copy.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not gonna make me date you. Okay?”

“ _Date_ me?”

“I get it, I’m ‘not like most guys around here.’ I’m appealing to a girl like you. Goes to a college somewhere else, rides a bike instead of driving, pink hair, listens to ska. Whatever. It’s fine. But I’m not the summer romance type, okay? I come here for the peace and quiet. Ask Ino. Just don’t bother me about it.”

Sakura’s hand finally falls to her side, her face contorting as Shikamaru delivers his ridiculous little speech. This time it’s her turn to ask, “Are you serious?”

“I just don’t want you to have unrealistic expectations.”

“Is that what you think of me?”

Shikamaru snorts. “Think of you?”

“That I’m just a vapid little girl? That the only possible reason I’d have to be nice to you is try and manipulate you into taking me out?”

“I’m not saying that–”

“Yes you are! _Yes_ you are. Ugh!”

“Look, I just want to be honest, okay?”

Sakura shakes her head, hard, straightening up on her bike. “You’re not being honest, you’re being an asshole. Fuck me for trying to be nice. And fuck _you_ for being too arrogant to accept a little kindness!” Sakura sits up on her seat and hurls the cassette at Shikamaru. She hears it clatter to the ground as she pedals away, shouting, “Dickhead!”

 

* * *

 

Sakura is shaking when she locks her bike at up at the shop. She forgets that while she’s good at bravado, she’s absolute shit at following through. Especially when it means being in the same room as the person she’s just yelled at for the next six hours.

She steps into the yeasty warmth of the shop and sets about opening it up, slightly regretting that she wasted the coffee on Shikamaru. At least she’s not closing.

Obito only steps out of the office once at exactly 11 to flip the _Closed_ sign to _Open_ , but otherwise Sakura is left alone and finds herself dozing off at the register when the bells on the door jingle. It’s Shikamaru. Sakura almost says _you’re late_ , but catches the words in the back of her throat before they come out. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but she doesn’t need to make things worse. He probably already thinks she’s fucking crazy.

Instead they make brief, tense eye contact as he crosses the floor and slips past her behind the counter. He turns on his heel just at her back and swings an arm around her, depositing a styrofoam coffee cup on the counter next to her. Shikamaru’s arm is so close to hers that Sakura can feel the warmth coming off of it. She stands, hair on end, frozen.

“For you,” Shikamaru says, entirely too close for someone she yelled at just 25 minutes ago. “Consider it an apology for misjudging.”

Sakura makes a small noise of assent in her throat. “Thanks.”

And just like that it’s over, Shikamaru floating away across the tile and disappearing into Obito’s office, like he was never even there.

 

* * *

 

Aside from his strange consolation gift, Shikamaru is his usual quiet self for the rest of the day until Sakura’s shift comes to an uneventful end.

Well, almost uneventful. She’s in the back doing a little shift work when the bells rattle and a familiar, loud voice fills the shop.

“Sakuraaaaaa! It’s me!”

“Just a minute!” She calls back, wiping at her forehead and plopping the mop back into its bucket.

“Aah, come on! You promised!”

“I’m coming, you idiot, I just have to finish this.”

She can imagine the way that Naruto huffs and crosses his arms as he sits down at one of the empty tables, always with those nagging puppy dog eyes. It would be a lie to say that Sakura doesn’t relish her last moments of peace while she mops.

She’s ticking off her chore list and writing OFF next to her name on the laminated shift sheet when the bells go again and Shikamaru comes around the corner.

“That lost puppy out there for you?”

She rolls her eyes and reaches up to take her hair out of the messy ponytail she keeps it in during the workday. “How did you know?”

“Call it intuition.”

“Small town intuition.”

Shikamaru shrugs and leans back against the prep counter.

“Well, that’s it for me.”

“Hm,” Shikamaru says.

Sakura passes by him and tosses a, “have a good night,” over her shoulder, not sticking around to see if he responds.

Then all of the sudden Naruto is ambushing her in a hug, smelling of sawdust and paint thinner from the hardware store he’s worked at since he was 15. “Sakura! It’s been so long! You never hang out with me anymore,” he whines, squeezing her tightly.

“Hey, hey, that’s a lie. I do hang out with you. I’m just busy.”

“Yeah, busy with dumb college.”

“Just because _some_ people want an education–”

“Alright, alright, I know. You’re gonna be a big computer genius one day and then when the machines turn on us you’ll be the only one who can save us just like John Connor.”

“Sure,” Sakura says, waving back at Shikamaru and Chouji as she leads Naruto out of the restaurant. “Something like that.”

They take Naruto’s ‘89 Ford Fiesta to Sasuke’s apartment, the local country station blasting all the way there. And, of course, Naruto sings along, as off-key and energetic as ever. At the house the apartment is in, they don’t even have to ring the doorbell but just barrel up the stairs with the use of Naruto’s spare key.

The walls and carpet are dingy, but the apartment is well-organized and clean. Naruto and Sakura both wave hello to Itachi where he reclines on the living room sofa, engrossed in a medical textbook. He had moved out of the Uchiha family home first, much to the dismay of Fugaku, and helped provide Sasuke with some of the stability he needed when he graduated a few years later. So Itachi had gotten the  apartment with him and gotten him a job at the bistro he worked at on weekends.

After the turmoil of their childhood – the family drama, the financial problems, the inflexible expectations of their father – the quiet of their adult lives was well-earned and well-suited to them.

Sasuke shuffles out into the living room, doubtless having heard Naruto thumping his way up the steps. He wears a pair of rolled-up cutoffs and a black _Thrasher_ shirt with the confident nonchalance of a kid who has never once bought a copy of _Thrasher_.

He nods his head, shaggy black hair flopping into his eyes, and motions Sakura and Naruto to the porch where they plop into the creaky lawn chairs with their woven plastic seats. Sasuke joins them a minute later, holding three plastic cups and a bottle of screw-top wine. Sakura takes the bottle and cracks the top, pouring and handing a cup to Naruto, then to Sasuke, who holds his cup out to her to fill.

Naruto makes a little whining sound as he looks down at his cup, his usual complaint sure to follow.

Preemptively, Sasuke says, “No.”

“Aw, c’mon, Sas. I know you have some PBR from last weekend.”

“I said no, Naruto, we’re having a nice evening.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Sakura adds as she takes a sip of the red blend, the bitter-fruity taste washing the lingering smell of pizza from her mouth and throat.

“I have preferences!”

Sasuke snorts and sips from his own cup – a cracked novelty number with Simba the lion printed on one side. “You have bad taste.”

“I do not,” Naruto shoots back, giving Sasuke an all-too-scrutable look over Sakura’s shoulder. They’ve been dancing around each other since they were kids, always a little more obsessed than boys who are just best friends usually are. It makes her realize how much she’s missed and that makes her kind of sad but also grateful. Maybe her being away gave them the space they needed to start figuring out whatever the hell it is that’s been building between them all this time. And even though she has to admit she’d always wanted to be there when it happened and they finally realized what they meant to each other, she can’t be mad, even if they do seem to think she can’t see it now.

Sasuke coughs and takes another sip of his wine, other hand disappearing into his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. He sets his cup down and lights up, tossing the pack in the air to Sakura, who follows suit and in turn passes the pack to Naruto.

They sit like that, smoking and sipping in comfortable silence as the sky turns orange over the row-houses and brown lawns. All of Sakura’s anxiety about the day – the morning fight with Shikamaru, his indecipherable “apology” after, the stress of still keying things in wrong even after two weeks at the shop – melts away with the warm feeling of the wine in her belly and the gentle headrush of the smoke.

Naruto shotguns the last of his drink, no doubt trying not to taste it too much, and finally opens the floor for conversation. “So, Sakura, how does it feel to be just like the rest of us?”

Sakura snorts a laugh. “What do you mean?”

“You know, working minimum wage instead of just being teacher’s pet at college. Pretty humbling, huh?”

She laughs in earnest this time. “I don’t know if it’s exactly like you’re imagining, but it’s okay. I don’t mind the pizza shop too much.”

“Yeah,” Naruto says, yawning and scratching his head, “Obito is pretty great.”

This time it’s Sasuke’s turn to make a noise. “Obito is something for sure.”

“But I guess Obito probably isn’t your favorite co-worker, huh?” Naruto waggles his eyebrows and Sakura is filled with both embarrassment and indignity.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying. We saw you on the way to Kakashi’s bar with Shikamaru.”

Sasuke chimes in. “And at the bus stop this morning.”

“What are you, fucking car-pooling?”

“Defensive, Sakura! So you _do_ have a crush!”

“I do _not!_ ” She yells it with a squawk that couldn’t possibly say anything other than _yes, I absolutely do_.

Sasuke pops a joint into his mouth and talks around it casually. “You can admit it, he did fill out.”

“Yeah, well,” Naruto cuts in, “he’s still an _asshole_ , though.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t even know him–” Sakura rolls her eyes first at Naruto, then at herself. What was she doing, defending him?

“Didn’t look like you were having a very nice conversation this morning, though.” Sasuke takes the lighter to the end of the joint, the warm light reflecting onto his finely-featured face.

“Then why say that has anything to do with me having a crush?”

Sasuke takes a drag and says thinly, “Oh, please.”

“We know what you’re like when you have a crush. Lotta boys in Konoha went around with chipped teeth in elementary school.” Naruto puts his empty cup on top of his head, still filled with that same frenetic energy as always, the kind that makes him smile too much and stick his nose in Sakura’s business fucking constantly.

“And a couple girls,” Sasuke adds, passing to Sakura.

“Whatever,” she says, pinching at the end of the joint until her fingertips turn white, “I don’t have to put up with this.”

“We’re just taking an interest in your life! We want you to know that we care, even if you did leave us here like– Sas, what’s something you throw out?”

“Your education?”

Naruto sits up, plastic cup tottering over and spilling the dregs of his wine into his hair. He points at Sasuke as the wine drips down the side of his face. _“That_ would have required our schools to educate me.”

Sakura holds in a lungful of smoke and tries desperately not to laugh-cough all of it out. Sasuke just raises and eyebrow. When Sakura finally breathes out, she says with a tone of cool disappointment, “Iruka’s heart is breaking at his homestead right now.”

“That’s–! Music doesn’t count!”

“Too late, Naruto,” Sakura says, waving the blunt in his face, “the damage is done. I’ll be telling him next time he comes into the shop.”

Naruto narrows his eyes as he snatches the joint from Sakura and takes a quick, deep hit. Smoke curls out of his nostrils as he talks, something they all thought was cool in high school and now comes as easy and uninteresting as drinking cheap beer at the beach.

“Hey, wait, don’t evade the question. So. Shikamaru.”

Sakura throws back the last of her wine, letting it burn down her throat and settle pleasant and warm in her belly. A looseness is starting to spread throughout her limbs, just a mild head high for now, not much stronger than a cigarette if she’s honest. She shrugs. “What about him?”

“You like him, right?”

“Of course she does.”

“Well,” Naruto continues, not bothering to wait for Sakura’s response, “that’s fine, I guess, even if he is an asshole. Sasuke’s not very nice anyways, so I know you can handle it. But if he breaks your heart–”

“Oh my god. Naruto, I’m not 12–”

“I will make him wish he never came back down from his ivory tower.”

“‘Ivory tower’? Who taught you that? Have you been listening to talk radio again?”

“I’m just saying! We have your back.”

“Fine,” Sakura says, putting a few fingers to her forehead, “but if I catch you trying to show him the hatchet in your trunk, I swear to god.”

“But that’s my signature move!”

“You got it from _Uncle Buck_ ,” Sasuke says with obvious disdain, as though they don’t still watch it once a month.

“So?”

“Give me the joint, Naruto. Besides, it’s not that big of a thing. I’m pretty sure he has no interest in me, anyways. He literally told me not to bother trying this morning.”

Sasuke makes a humming sound. “Is that why you threw a mixtape at him?”

“Jesus Christ! Were you having a stakeout? Do you just follow me around whenever I leave the house? Do you two even _work?_ ”

“Calm down, the speed limit is 25 and the street is a straight shot.”

“And you have pink hair!”

“Kinda hard to miss.”

Sakura just takes the joint back from Naruto and stiffly holds out her cup to Sasuke to refill.

“So do you want to talk about it?” Naruto asks.

Sakura’s voice is cottony as she talks around a mouthful of smoke. “Do I want to talk about what?”

“The fight with him.”

“Nothing happened!”

“It doesn’t _seem_ like nothing–”

“Shut up! Oh my god, shut up! I do not wanna talk about it! I told you. I tried to do something nice for him and he responded by telling me to fuck off.”

Even Sasuke seems surprised by this. He raises his eyebrows as he passes Sakura’s cup back. “Really? That seems harsh.”

“Yeah, well, what he really said was ‘don’t bother me,’ but that was the gist.”

Naruto winces. “What a dick! I’ll–”

“NO,” Sakura says, “you won’t. Just leave him alone. He, like, kind of apologized anyways, so. I’m more mad that I let him get to me like that. You guys know I don’t like to yell at people.”

“Well,” Sasuke says.

Sakura’s tone is needle-sharp. “Yes?”

“You don’t like _having yelled_. But in my experience…”

“Why the hell do I even hang out with you guys?”

Naruto drags his chair a little closer to Sakura and plucks the joint from her hand to hand back to Sasuke. “Because you love us. So you said he apologized?”

“It wasn’t a whole thing, he just brought me coffee. And he was fine the rest of the day.”

Sasuke and Naruto share a look over Sakura’s head.

“It doesn’t mean anything, though. He just felt bad. As he should have.”

“Uh-huh,” Naruto says, eyes narrowing again in a comically suspicious expression. “I’m sure.”

“Can we please talk about something else now? For real. I’m going to be fine and if Shikamaru is mean to me Naruto will break his kneecaps. Whatever, deal.”

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Naruto bulldozes on and Sakura has half a mind to sock him in the mouth, just to make him shut up. “If he’s a jerk, let us know.”

Sasuke, finally loose from the wine and the weed and a few small, silent laughs, shushes him so Sakura doesn’t have to. “Naruto, I think she’s got it. Let’s move on.”

“Thank you,” Sakura says with great exasperation. “So how’s the restaurant?”

Sasuke shrugs. “About the same as always. Hasn’t burned down yet.”

“I guess that’s about as good as it gets around here.”

“Hmm,” he hums, considering rather than dismissing, “I’d say _this_ is probably as good as it gets.”

Sasuke gestures out towards the sky. It’s not just orange anymore, but pink and red, with a deep blue creeping up from the East behind the house. It’s the kind of colors that can’t be captured on a camera, that painters spend their whole lives trying to pin down just right. And here they are, the three of them, shitty small town kids who made it long enough to learn to enjoy it. Even if they annoy the shit out of Sakura sometimes, these two boys are her biggest reason to keep coming home, and one of the few she still enjoys it.

“You might be right.”

 

* * *

 

She ends up crashing at Sasuke’s that night, too wine drunk to bike and too lazy to walk, not when she’s with two of her best friends and they can all pile on Sasuke’s double bed. Sakura had drunkenly tried to insist on the couch in the living room, but either the boys were still oblivious from their own feelings, or they didn’t think she had an inkling of an idea of how they felt, and vehemently insisted they all share the bed.

She wakes up tangled under Naruto’s arm and Sasuke’s leg and carefully peels herself out from under them, grimacing at the way her head pounds and her mouth feels like someone shoved a bunch of cotton in it. _Ugh._ She should’ve expected the hangover, but that doesn’t make it anymore pleasant.

She grabs one of Sasuke’s shirts out of his drawers and ties it up, slips on her shorts and flip flops, shoves her shit in her bag and shuffles out to the living room and kitchen, where Itachi is reading the paper and drinking coffee.

“Morning.”

She grunts.

“Coffee?” he offers, way too bright for this hour.

“Please,” she says, shuffling into the bathroom to swirl some toothpaste around in her mouth. She gratefully accepts the thermos from Itachi’s hands and heads out to pedal to work. Fuck the morning shift. Even if it does start at 11, on days where she’s hungover that is entirely too early.

She isn’t sure if she’s relieved or upset when she sees Tenten’s usual space buns through the counter window, and walks through the kitchen door to find her scribbling on some paper and singing under her breath to Chouji’s music, which he’s playing out loud on a boombox he must have lugged in.

Of course, the part of her brain that has a crush wants to spend time with Shikamaru, but the rational part of her brain keeps playing over what Naruto and Sasuke had said. Was she that obvious? Did Shikamaru _know?_ Did he _care?_ Ugh.

Something in the air feels thick that morning, steam from the ovens and the low buzz of the fluorescents doing nothing to help the pit in the stomach. She nearly destroys the order pad with the way she doodles on it to try and curb the anxiety, but once the doors to the shop open she doesn’t have much time to dwell.

There’s a game on that afternoon and it seems like the whole town has decided to order pizza and wings, and she really doesn’t have a second to even think about Shikamaru with the way she’s picking up the phone or taking a counter order every other second. She even feels her hangover dissipate with the coffee and the volume of the customers.

That is until she hears Obito’s (and yes, they’d been so busy that even Obito is on the floor) voice say gratefully, “You’re saving our ass, Nara. Tell Kakashi the next drink for you is on me.”

“He never makes us pay, though?”

“What was that? Get to work!”

Sakura turns around so fast at Shikamaru’s voice that she nearly barrels straight into him, where he’s standing entirely too close for comfort. She’s starting to think he does that on purpose.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Saving your asses. Tenten is only one girl with one car, and y’all are a shop with a fuck ton of pizzas.”

She rolls her eyes, but says, “Great. There’s an order to go under the warmer. See ya in a little.”

She expects the rush to keep up all shift, but around 2pm it peters out, and she hears Shikamaru telling Tenten to take off early because he had to work the night anyway.

The shop is practically empty by the time the game starts, and Shikamaru takes a seat on an empty crate, watching Sakura thoughtfully.

“Isn’t it time for your daily nap?”

“I slept in this morning,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate. “You look tired, though.” It doesn’t sound like an insult, like it might from someone else. Just an observation. He smiles at her, and makes no mention of their bus stop altercation, if you could call it that, so she supposes the coffee really was an apology.

“Eh, I crashed at Sasuke’s. We drank.”

“I see that,” he raises his eyebrows. “What do you see in him, anyway?”

Oh. Oh, no. she has to set that straight.

 _“See_ in him?” she asks, willing her voice to go down from the nearly shrill level it’s at. “Oh, no. He’s like my brother. Him and Naruto both.”

“Chill out, Haruno. I know. He’s like your Ino.”

“Oh. Well yeah. I guess.”

That’s...kind of sweet, actually, that he thinks of Ino that way. She knows they’ve been friends forever, but she kind of figured it was out of a sense of obligation to Shikaku and Inoichi, their fathers, who not only were best friends, but also worked together at the high school.

“She’s a handful, but she’s my handful, you know? You probably feel the same way about Sasuke and Naruto.”

“Mmm. Ino too. When she gets into something, it becomes this whole _thing,_ you know? Remember her tarot phase? I guess she’s still into that, actually.”

“Remember? Of course I do, I was the one who bought her her first deck. She wouldn’t stop talking about it. Someone had to take pity and shell out the cash.”

Oh yeah, she remembers the way Ino would chatter on, after having picked up a book on tarot from a thrift shop. She’d honestly started to tune it out, and figured Shikamaru had done the same thing, with his aloof, effortless coolness. He’d always seemed so above everyone, but she’s starting to figure out that that’s just a hard shell, hiding the fact that he’s...well, kind of a big softie.

If she didn’t have a crush on him for his looks and interests and the way he teases her but manages to always make it sound fond, now she _definitely_ does.

He changes the conversation then, onto a story about him and Chouji fishing, but she’s busy thinking about what it’d be like to go on a date with him, and lets his calm, deep voice fade into the background. It’d be nice. He’d definitely listen to what she has to say, and would have witty and thought-provoking things to banter back with, just as easy as a slow shift at work, with the added bonus of a makeout in his truck.

“Sakura?” his voice jerks her out of her reverie.

“What?”

“You have an order,” he motions, and she whips around to find a customer standing at the counter, annoyed look on her face.

“Shit,” she mutters, but she notices the way the ends of his mouth quirk up.

She’s in too deep. And it’s only halfway through June.

 

* * *

 

More than halfway through June, Sakura is beginning to feel like she’s getting into the flow of the pizza shop. She rolls out of bed in the morning and pads around her house while she wakes up, the cool air of her shuttered room turning warm as she moves into the sunny kitchen. Neither of her parents are around at this time of morning, so sometimes she sets the radio to the local college station and turns the volume up while she cooks eggs and toast. Other mornings it’s cereal in front of the TV, watching randoms spin wheels and win cars on _The Price Is Right_ or getting weirdly engrossed in a new PBS cartoon with a bunch of kids going on field trips in a magic bus.

If she’s running ahead of schedule, she’ll take her coffee out on the porch, pop on her headphones, and smoke a cigarette while listening to a tape. It feels downright indulgent in the early summer heat, the sun waking up her skin, her favorite mug in her hand, the breeze ruffling her damp hair as it air dries from the shower.

Her dad hates that she smokes now, but there’s not much he can do about it since she takes care of her butts and never does it in the house. Her mom had just rolled her eyes and told him to get over it. _We all have to try things sometime._ Sakura thinks she’s is right about that. We all have try things, like cigarettes and cutting apron strings, like entertaining the idea of a summer fling.

That’s where she sits now, dressed and ready to head out but just dragging her feet, enjoying her last few minutes relaxed and alone. And trying not to think of Shikamaru.

That’s how she spends _far_ too much of her time now. She can’t get through one side of a tape without her thoughts drifting somewhere wistful or mortifying. She keeps replaying their argument at the bus stop over and over, how she snapped at him – she now knows – in front of Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura wouldn’t say she has “anger problems,” at least not anymore, but fuck, she thinks, touching a hand to her forehead, her mouth still gets her in trouble enough.

But then, hadn’t he kind of apologized to her later anyways? And hadn’t she heard _Speaking in Tongues_ playing from his pickup’s stereo since then? These aren’t really questions, of course, because both of those things are true, but they do raise some questions of their own. Then, of course, there was the day he came in to help out and he’d let her get to know her a bit deeper, maybe.

Sakura’s Casio watch beeps, letting her know she’s got 20 minutes before her shift officially starts. Well, that’s it, then. She ashes her butt and hops down the steps to where her bike waits, blessedly, eternally consistent.

She makes it there in 16 minutes, giving her just enough time to lock her bike up, put her hair up, and tie her apron before popping open the register and doing the morning count. To her satisfaction, Obito has decided that he doesn’t need to watch over her shoulder anymore. Shikamaru, however, is another matter.

“Those two are stuck together. And that was a one in the five part.”

“I know,” Sakura bites back, perhaps a little more harshly than is necessary, and her voice cracks a little at Shikamaru’s nearness. She’s been trying to keep cool lately, at least at work. What she does in her bed at night is another matter. But shit, now is not the time to think about that, not with the sharp, fresh smell of Shikamaru’s two-for-one deodorant washing over her and making her head light. Not to mention the distracting warmth of his bare arm brushing against hers.

He’s not doing anything all that unusual, just standing next to her, but at this point it feels...overt.

“Do you mind?” Sakura says, tone far more even this time.

“Sorry,” he says, “didn’t mean to step on your toes.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she says, bumping his hip gently with hers. “I can do my job, okay? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Tch, attitude. You’re bringing down my morale.”

“That sounds like a you problem, Nara.”

“Keep that up and I’ll have to ask Tobi to arbitrate.”

Their back and forth sets Sakura at ease, both enabling her to pretend that nothing weird is happening here while also indulging that secret part of her that wants his attention on her all the time.

“Please, he doesn’t have the time.”

Shikamaru looks like he has something he wants to say when the phone rings and Sakura holds a finger up. “Hold on, I’m sorry, I really have to take this.”

Shikamaru rolls his eyes and shrugs, turning to lean over on his prep counter while Sakura takes the order. When she’s done, she calls it out and he makes no move to help, faking sleep until she throws a binder clip at his head.

From there the day stays slow until about 5:00, when first shift change comes. Sakura and Shikamaru are both on ‘til 6, but there’s a lull when Chouji breaks to run an errand. Anko is supposed to come in for the evening shift and Obito has to leave early for some “thing” he refuses to refer to in any more specific way.

Shikamaru mouths _date night_ at Sakura as Obito shuffles his way out the door and she can barely contain a giggle as it jingles shut.

“Really?”

“Did you see how clean those socks were? The wide-leg Dickies? No doubt.”

Sakura can’t help but laugh a little, even if she’s worried what Shikamaru might think about it. Does she seem like she’s trying too hard?

“Hey,” he says, reaching up to adjust his ponytail. “Wanna go out for a smoke while the boss is out?” He swipes hand behind his ear and produces a well-rolled joint.

Sakura’s first thought is _what if somebody comes in?_ But she knows better than to be a killjoy. “Sure,” she says, “sounds nice.” They’re only here for another hour anyways.

When the sign is flipped to say _Be Back in a Minute!_ Shikamaru leads them both out the back to the stoop with the butt bucket. There’s not much room on the step, so they sit with hips and thighs almost brushing. Sakura tries not to focus on the feeling too hard. But then all there is left to focus on is how nice his face looks in the semi-shadow behind the building and the look of concentration that graces it as he roasts the tip of the J with his ubiquitous black Bic. There’s something about the total nonchalance that she finds sexy -- kind of like the apathetic look she’d liked on Sasuke back when she (embarrassingly) had a crush on him. But it’s different on Shika, she can tell it’s kind of put on. He’s not apathetic, just _cool_. She knows there’s something behind that look, something intense, like there’s something he just can’t stop thinking about.

Once the joint is smoking Shikamaru takes a drag and holds it out for Sakura to take. She pulls gently, silently praying that she won’t cough on the first toke. She’s smoked plenty of weed but she can’t help but think it would be embarrassing if she did, with the way Shikamaru never seems to.

He blows the last of his smoke away and clears his throat. “Should have grabbed some water.”

“I can--” Sakura starts, voice cottony from the smoke in her mouth.

“Don’t worry about it. This is nice.”

“Yeah,” she says back, watching Shikamaru’s eyes track across the sky. It’s hours from sunset yet, but there’s a warm richness to the light right now, with thin clouds making the sunlight disperse so it doesn’t land stingingly bright on anything. Anything, that is, except for the earring in Shikamaru’s ear, which glittlers a little bit whenever he moves his head.

“I think, off the album, my favorite song is ‘This Must Be the Place.’ But it’s all good.”

Sakura tilts her head. It’s probably her favorite, too, but it’s not a deep cut by any means. “I like that one, too.”

“There’s-- you know, an ambivalence to it. All their music has that, but the contrast between lyrics and sound is less. It’s more straightforward, a perfect album-ender. You know?”

A syrupy sensation washes slowly over Sakura’s body, the antithesis to a nicotine headrush. She sits with the thought, trying to conjure the whole song up in her mind until she realizes it’s probably been too long since she said anything. She can almost hear the steady beat of the song in her head. “Hmm, I guess it is.”

“What, nothing else to add?” The pass the joint between them again, Shikamaru’s fingers brushing against Sakura’s with the last lingering coolness of the A/C from inside the shop.

“You really want my thoughts on it?”

“Yeah,” Shikamaru says, shrugging, as Sakura takes another drag, “of course.”

Sakura leans back and looks up at the sky, letting her mind wander as she goes over the song in her mind. “It’s my favorite, too. It reminds me a lot of high school, but like in a good way. My mom bought me the tape for my birthday when I was a sophomore, even though it wasn’t new or anything. I think she got it at a second-hand store. I used to play it in my car when I drove home and for whatever reason, I just remember this one specific moment when it was playing and the windows were down and I was super tired from band practice but it felt really _good_ , like everything was gonna be okay even though I still had a shitload of homework to do. Like, I had this shitty car that would end up breaking down in a few months, but I didn’t know that yet, and my mom loved me enough to know that I liked the Talking Heads, and I felt like maybe one day I’d know what they were talking about when they said ‘sing into my mouth.’ Like I was tired but also comfortable and excited. Then the silence after when the tape ends, all bittersweet but I didn’t want to start it over.” Sakura sighs. “I don’t know. But that’s why I like it so much. That’s why I like the whole album.”

It isn’t until she’s finished that Sakura realizes she’s been talking for far too long, but before she can apologize she notices that Shikamaru has gone from looking absently at the clouds to looking at _her_. His chin rests on a fist that he’s propped up on his thigh and he’s got that intense look in his eyes. Like whatever thinking he’s doing isn’t happening behind them, but in front, in the air between them. It makes Sakura’s whole scalp tingle.

Shikamaru blinks slowly. “See, that’s why I asked. I knew you’d have something interesting to say.”

“I mean, it’s kind of dumb. Everybody feels like they’re in a movie when they’re listening to music in the car.”

“But it’s your movie.”

“Well, duh.”

Shikamaru’s mouth quirks up at one corner.

“Hey, wait, are you trying to tell me you kept the tape even after I threw it at you?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter that that’s what I was trying to do. Since you asked. But yeah, I did. It’s in the truck.”

Sakura tries not to smile like an idiot but she does smile. “I’m glad. Are you gonna pass that back or what?”

Shikamaru looks down at the joint in his hand. There’s not a lot left but definitely a few more pulls. “You know how to shotgun?”

“Oh,” Sakura says, feeling her cheeks heat up at the idea. “Where you blow the smoke into someone’s mouth?”

“Right.”

She’s never done it before but like hell will she admit that right now. “Yeah, of course.”

Shikamaru puts the joint to his mouth and flicks his eyebrows up as he takes a drag. Sakura’s heart hammers in her chest. He pulls the joint away with one hand and holds the other open in the air, like he’s cradling a cheek. Sakura leans in, letting her lips part. Shikamaru moves in, his face just inches from hers, he’s humming part of the song softly, deep in his throat.

A wash of cool air rushes over them from behind, followed by Anko’s best angry manager yell. “Stop fucking making out on the stoop! We have customers! Goddamnit!”

Sakura and Shikamaru spring away from one another, a cloud of smoke bursting from Shikamaru’s mouth. If Sakura’s heart was hammering a second ago, it’s trying to leap out of her mouth now.

“Jesus Christ!” She yells, almost involuntarily. “Sorry!”

Shikamaru coughs and coughs like he’s about to hack up a lung and Anko drops the angry face, bursting into laughter.

“God that was good! I wish you could have seen yourselves.”

Smiling sheepishly, Sakura nods and lets out a thin laugh.

“Don’t look like that, I’m not gonna fire you or anything. It’s no worries, just come back in. And don’t take breaks when no one is covering the front anymore, okay?”

Sakura swallows and stands up, placing a hand on the cool metal door frame to steady herself. “Yeah, totally. Sorry. Should’ve waited.”

“Yeah,” Anko says, sparing an amused glance towards Shikamaru as he shakily gets to his feet. “But like I said, no big. Now come on. Back to work you two lovebirds.”

Shikamaru glares at Anko with teary eyes and she laughs again.

“I know, Shika, you don’t have to say it. I’ll quit it once you’ve done the delivery that’s waiting for you.”

Back inside there is a delivery order waiting for them, but it’s not out of the oven yet so Shikamaru and Sakura stand around awkwardly while he coughs and she tries to pretend not to notice. Eventually, though, she grabs him a styrofoam cup of water and sets it down on the prep counter, tastefully turning away while he inhales it in one long gulp. Sakura tries not to think about how his throat looks as he swallows.

From there it’s a quiet hour with Shikamaru mostly gone on dinner orders. He gets back right as Sakura is unlocking her bike, Tenten’s car already in the usual delivery spot. He hops down from the driver’s seat and waves to Sakura as he crosses the lot to bring in the last bit of cash and clock out.

“Hey!” Sakura calls.

Shikamaru stops and turns towards her, taking a single step towards her before seeming to catch himself. “Yeah?”

“Thanks, for keeping the tape. And asking me about it. And for smoking with me.”

“Yeah, it was nice. Thanks for the tape. And for yelling at me for being an asshole. Usually only Ino does that.”

“There’s a lot of stuff only she can do.”

“Still, like I said. I kinda needed it.”

“Is that an ‘I’m sorry?’”

Shikamaru narrows his eyes and turns back to the shop. “It might be, Haruno. But I won’t say.”

Sakura smiles and shouts, “Asshole!”

Shikamaru gives her the finger over his shoulder and it’s so easy and funny and weirdly _nice_ that Sakura thinks about it all the way home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! We're workin' on chapter 2. Kudos & comments always very appreciated!


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